I am planning on applying May 2023, and will graduate either fall '22 or spring '23 (will take a gap year). I have been working at a clinical job since February 2021 and have about 500 hours. For several reasons, the job is extremely tiring and takes up a good amount of my time even when I am not physically working. Furthermore, with omicron I am kind of uncomfortable staying; my state is doing a horrible job handling it, I live with my immunocompromised father, and the job involves procedures that are aerosolizing; I trust my N95, but I still worry a lot.
I love the job, but it is getting to be really hard and I need the extra time to do shadowing (I want to shadow several different specialties now that I am confident that I am excited about a career in medicine from the clinical experience I have gotten ), get back into lab research, and start studying for the MCAT + prepare for graduation/honors thesis.
My question is, how bad is it to move on from my only real non-shadow clinical experience a year prior to applying? does that show a lack of commitment, or raise questions about how sincere I am about medicine? Plus, between now an my time of matriculation if I got in, I have two full years that would be without clinical work (I wanted to do research, volunteer and travel). I am not sure if I should suck it up and keep working or not. I also feel super guilty because our clinic has been hammered with staff shortages and I feel bad about possibly leaving. Thanks for any advice
I love the job, but it is getting to be really hard and I need the extra time to do shadowing (I want to shadow several different specialties now that I am confident that I am excited about a career in medicine from the clinical experience I have gotten ), get back into lab research, and start studying for the MCAT + prepare for graduation/honors thesis.
My question is, how bad is it to move on from my only real non-shadow clinical experience a year prior to applying? does that show a lack of commitment, or raise questions about how sincere I am about medicine? Plus, between now an my time of matriculation if I got in, I have two full years that would be without clinical work (I wanted to do research, volunteer and travel). I am not sure if I should suck it up and keep working or not. I also feel super guilty because our clinic has been hammered with staff shortages and I feel bad about possibly leaving. Thanks for any advice
